A menorah carved on a stone block, found in a 1400-year-old Byzantine church in Abila, Jordan is the first tangible evidence of a Jewish presence in the ancient Hellenistic city that been assumed, but not proven.

There is ample evidence of Jewish presence in the region, such as an ancient synagogue discovered in nearby Jerash. But in 36 years of excavations at Tell al-Abila, also known as Selukeia, no traces of Jews living in the Roman trading hub had been found before.

The depiction of the seven-branched menorah, with a branching three-legged base, was found on a stone in the second tier of a wall, near the floor, while excavating a Byzantine church from the 6th or 7th century CE.

“This is the first physical evidence of a Jewish presence at Abila, and holds great promise that further discoveries will give more evidence in this direction,” Dave Vila, head of the excavations, told Haaretz.

The stone block with the menorah carving was almost certainly not in situ, but was repurposed from another structure, probably a synagogue. Since it was not found in situ, meaning in its original site, the date of the menorah cannot be ascertained. But it has to predate the construction of the church, which is about 1300 to 1400 years old.

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Search for the synagogue from which it may have come is underway. If none is found, that doesn't mean there wasn't one. Reuse of one block could indicate that all the material in the Jewish buildings of Abila was reused over the centuries.

Aerial view of Tell al-Abila, showing columns in the remains of a basilica.Simon Noel Rutter / Aerial Photographic Archive for Archaeology in the Middle East

The excavation of the church in which the menorah was discovered found evidence of use going back thousands of years, from a Roman bath complex underneath it, on top of which an earlier Byzantine church was built that has been discovered below the current one, to later Muslim occupation.

“There is a strong possibility that the church was used as a place of Muslim prayer – a musalla – before the earthquake that destroyed the whole structure in 749CE,” Vila told Haaretz. in fact, the quake destroyed Abila entirely. (The same happened to ancient Beit She'an.)

Elsewhere in Tell al-Abila, the archaeologists uncovered a Byzantine marketplace , and a Muslim grave from the Crusader Era, dating to around the 11th century CE. The burial is currently being studied.

Abila of the Decapolis

The ancient ruins of Abila (from the Semitic word "abel" for watercourse) lie on the modern border of Jordan and Syria, near the Yarmuk River.

According to some sources, at least, Abila was one of the towns that made out the federation known as the Decapolis, a league of cities that existed around the second century C.E.

The word Decapolis comes from the Greek deka, meaning “ten,” and polis, “city”, but actually Ptolemy for example names 18 cities as in the “Decapolis,” which may indicate that the name came to be used in a general way, and that the number of cities varied. Which cities were the original ten is not clear. Some scholars would put Abila, listed by Ptolemy, in place of Raphana as among them.

One version of the ancient Decapolis.Nichalp, Wikimedia Commons

The term “Decapolis” first appears in the writings of Josephus and Pliny the Elder (both of the first century C.E.), and in Christian Greek scriptures. While acknowledging that some difference of opinion already existed, Pliny listed the following cities as among the original ten: Damascus, Philadelphia, Raphana, Scythopolis, Gadara, Hippo (Hippos), Dion, Pella, Galasa (Gerasa), and Canatha.

It seems evident, at any rate, that the Decapolis region did not have precisely defined boundaries, and that the authority of the Decapolis cities did not embrace all the intervening territory, but applied only to the district of each particular city.

In any case, the common purpose of the Decapolis, which was located south of the Sea of Galilee, was to protect mutual trade interests and also to defend against anti-Hellenistic forces within Palestine and aggressive nomadic tribes in the desert regions. The only Decapolis city west of the Jordan River, in today's Israel, is Beit She'an, known in antiquity as Scythopolis.

The ruins of Beit She’an, which attest to Israel’s history of catastrophic quakes.Michael Jacobson

The menorah

Depictions of the Jewish menorah with a tripod base were popular in late antique Judaism (fourth–sixth centuries C.E.). This can be seen clearly on the mosaic floors of several synagogues, for instance in Hammath Tiberias, Beit She'an, Beit Alpha and Nirim, not to mention on inscribed plaques, oil lamps and even a tiny gold ring from the fifth century C.E.

One of the oldest symbols in Judaism, the menorah has remained an enduring symbol of the Jewish people for millennia. The first known menorah is believed to have been made for the Tabernacle and is mentioned in the Bible (Exodus 25:31-40, 37:17-24).

Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, and analysis from Israel and the Middle East. Haaretz.com provides extensive and in-depth coverage of Israel, the Jewish World and the Middle East, including defense, diplomacy, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the peace process, Israeli politics, Jerusalem affairs, international relations, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli business world and Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora.